Carnival miracle trip report 11/6

[Dicenator]

CARNIVAL MIRACLE - TRIP REPORT

NOV. 6 - NOV.14

The ship departed from Manhattan at 4 PM on Tuesday, Nov. 6th with a Noreaster approaching. Two days at sea was the first leg of this trip and the winds from the storm were in the 30 to 40 MPH range; so this eliminated sitting out by the pool. First some background: We originally had this ship booked for October 29th but we cancelled due to hurricane Sandy and rebooked it for Nov. 6th. Carnival called us a few days before departure and offered us some good rates to upgrade to a suite which we took advantage of.

The itinerary of this cruise ended up being identical to that of the Carnival Pride which we were on only 5 weeks earlier; Port Canaveral, Nassau and Freeport. If we had made the Oct. 29th cruise the itinerary was much better being San Juan, St. Thomas and the Turks and Caicos. The only thing that we did different was in Freeport where we went to the Grand Lucayan resort and spent $10 each for a day pass for the pool and beach. The day was absolutely clear with a temperature near 80 but the pool water temperature was cold and the ocean temp. wasn't what I was hoping for being maybe 75 degrees. After 3 hours we left and stopped at the Treasure Bay casino where my wife won $50 at blackjack. Neither of their 2 craps tables were open when we were there.

This cruise ended up being the "cruise from hell" and it had nothing to do with the ship or the weather. It was due to the family members who were with us. My 90 year old father in law, my brother and sister in law were with us. My father in laws care giver, his grandsons wife was supposed to be on this cruise sharing his stateroom with him. However the day before departure her 12 year old son had a go cart accident and lost the tips of his 3 middle fingers on one hand. So she couldn't go and we couldn't ship him to her house because she was going to be spending most of her time at the hospital with her son. So we were forced to take him on our cruise but there were 4 of us to share the responsibility to care for him. Well we weren't expecting what happened to happen. My father in law can't see, is confined to a wheel chair to go more than 10 feet. For 10 foot distances or less he can use his walker and say go to the bathroom. He sleeps typically 22 hours a day. The first night we had him in his stateroom by himself with the lights on and everything seemed fine. My wife and brother in law then decided that he shouldn't be alone at night and they agreed to rotate. So the second night my brother in law stayed with him in his stateroom and everything was OK. My brother in law has vision difficulties too, blind in one eye, and doesn't go to the casino or shows and after dinner he would just retire to the stateroom with his father. Night 3 is now our turn. After dinner we took him to our stateroom, lights on and got him all set up on his bed. At 8 PM he was sleeping so my wife and myself went to the casino with a plan to go back and check him every hour or so. At 9:15 I went to check on him and he was sleeping so back to the casino. At 10:15, I'm sitting in the casino watching my wife play poker at the poker pro machine when one of the pit bosses that I know brought someone from security to me. He asked if I was related to Buddy XXX and I said that I was and he asked me to come with him to my stateroom. When I get to my stateroom there are 3 security guards and the nurse from the ship in my room with my father in law sitting on my bed. What had happened was probably around 9:45 he woke up and had to go to the toilet to take a crap. Well he didn't use his walker and the first thing that he did was go to the stateroom door thinking it was the bathroom door and open it and he didn't close it all the way. From there he found his way to the toilet, did his business, and because he didn't have his walker he couldn't lift himself off the toilet so he was stuck on it. Then he started yelling "help" and some passengers walking by our cabin called security. Well he was alright and they had gotten him off the toilet but I had to sign an agreement with security saying that he would not be left alone for 1 minute for the rest of the cruise. I was very upset over this whole incident and when my wife came to our stateroom around 10:45 I went back to the casino to get away from my father in law and calm down. I went back to our stateroom around midnight and somehow managed to fall asleep despite lights being on for Buddy. At 4 am we were wakened with his first cries for help for the day. He wanted to take a leak. Well his walker was right in front of him with his urinal bottle on the cross bar. All he had to do was stand up pee in his bottle sit down and go back to sleep. Nope that didn't happen. He also has Alzheimers and dementia so you can imagine the nonsense we deal with all the time. By 4:30 that morning I was up wandering the ship after 4 hours of sleep waiting to get some coffee at 5:30. We had him for 3 nights in our stateroom and he woke me up all 3 times around 4 or 4:15 in the morning. There were other issues also with my brother and sister in law which I'm not going to get into. Neither of them can go on a cruise by themselves after being on 4 previous cruises. Both of them have no skills at all and absolutely no worldly knowledge.

The ship was a sister ship to the Pride and the Legend which we have sailed on previously. The theme of this ship was fictional characters and they did have some cherub pictures here and there. The main dining room was interesting in that all the lighting was purple colored lamps that looked somewhat like mushroom heads. There were maybe a thousand of these in the dining room. I felt kind of like Alice in Wonderland when I was in the dining room.

Now that I've gotten all that out of the way I'll get on to the casino scene. Due to the complaints that I had only 5 weeks previously on the Carnival Pride they treated me exceptionally well on this cruise. First we got a complimentary dinner to the steak house which is a $35 per person extra charge and the casino included a bottle of wine. They gave both me and my wife free drink cards for the casino bar and they had chocolate covered strawberries delivered to our stateroom one evening. Both the casino manager Petr and the casino host Willian went out of there way to see me and talk to me every day in the casino. They made me feel like a VIP. I've already sent an email to their boss in Miami complementing both of them.

The casino was large and laid out very logically. All the table games were together in a L shape with the craps table at the end farthest away from the main traffic aisle going through the casino. This was great because there was nobody walking by the craps table at all. The craps table was 12 feet long with blue micro fiber and extremely hard (super ball rubber) on the walls. You could not depress this rubber at all. There were no prop bets, 2X odds and a $5 minimum and $200 maximum bet limits. The bounce characteristics were bouncy but playable but the super ball rubber would kill you if your throw bounced into it. It took me a few days to really adjust to this table and even after that I found the window to make a good throw to be extremely small. If the speed of your throw or your landing zone or your height were off just a little bit your results would typically be one die staying close to the wall and the other one bouncing off by a foot or more. These large bounce backs would typically result in a 7 out more times than not.

After a few PSO's in the first few days I took to not making any bets until I got past the first 2 throws. On the 4th night we had our steakhouse dinner with the bottle of wine which I drank about 2/3. Well I could feel it when I got to the craps table and I had enough sense to only throw one hand that evening. I definitely felt impaired. I drink wine so infrequently that it does get to me.

There were 2 dealers on this ship, Steven and Ganna, who we had gotten to know when we were on the Carnival Victory in April. All of the dealers and pit bosses were very friendly and talkative and professional in every way. Juliana and Nicole stand out in my mind probably because they were both young and very pretty.

The craps table was open in the afternoon by 1:00 on every at sea day and it would open in the evening right at 8:00 and 9:00 on 2 evenings. 95% of the time there would only be 2 dealers but the box person would fill the third dealer role if needed. I have never seen so little craps action on a cruise ship. There were only 2 regular players there every day, me and a guy named Anthony and he didn't play nearly as often as I did. Probably 80% of my playing was by myself at the table. Very rarely would a newbie show up and play with maybe $40. My wife only played 2 hands at craps for the whole week which I don't understand. Her hands were 9 throws and then 4 or 5 days later she threw a 26 throw hand with 5 points made. She then left to go play at her poker pro game. ??????? Oh, I played the poker pro one afternoon and won $120. I cashed that in and never went back.

My throwing was off and on for most of the week. I found it difficult to hit that small window that I talked about earlier. The perfect landing spot for me was 27" from the wall with a soft throw no more than 4" in height at its apogee. If I was on I would typically make hands in the 20 throw or more range, whereas if I was off just a little my hand length would be in the 7 to 10 range. I guess I should get into my throwing details now:

Nov. 6 - Day 1

UH 10 throws 1 point 2 come out wins

UH 9 throws

UH 19 throws 1 point 1 come out win

UH 6 throws

UH 6 throws

Nov. 7 - Day 2

UH 8 throws

UH 6 throws

UH 7 throws 1 point 1 come out win

UH 8 throws 1 point

PARR 7 throws 1 point 1 come out win

PUSH 9 throws

UH 12 throws 1 point

Nov. 8 - Day 3

UH 34 throws 2 points 2 come out wins

UH 27 throws 4 points

UH 5 throws

UH 18 throws 2 points

UH 8 throws

UH 6 throws 1 come out win

UH 9 throws 1 point

UH 8 throws 1 point

Nov. 9 - Day 4

night after drinking the wine

UH 10 throws 1 point

Nov. 10 - Day 5

UH 17 throws 5 points 1 come out win

UH 18 throws 3 points 1 come out win

I left after 2 hands because the air conditioning near the craps table wasn't working and it was getting very warm and uncomfortable in that area.

Nov. 11 - Day 6

UH 18 throws 1 point 1 come out win

UH 6 throws 1 point

PARR 15 throws 3 points

UH 6 throws 1 point 1 come out win

UH 17 throws 2 points

UH 18 throws 2 points 1 come out win

Nov. 12 - Day 7

UH 24 throws 2 points 1 come out win

UH 8 throws 1 point 1 come out win

UH 7 throws 1 point

UH 15 throws 2 points

UH 6 throws 2 come out wins

UH 9 throws 3 come out wins

UH 16 throws point

UH 8 throws 1 point

UH 7 throws

UH 16 throws 1 come out win

UH 11 throws 1 point

UH 10 throws

UH 24 throws 2 points

UH 21 throws 2 points 5 come out wins

UH 11 throws 2 points

Nov. 13 - Day 8

UH 20 throws 1 point 6 come out wins

UH 9 throws 2 points 1 come out win

UH 25 throws 4 points 2 come out wins

UH 9 throws 1 point 1 come out win

UH 22 throws 4 points 1 come out win

UH 23 throws 3 points 2 come out wins

UH 25 throws 4 points 1 come out win

On day 7 I made a note to cock my wrist back as far as possible. This helped me keep my throws soft and hit my landing zone with more accuracy. This note was put in my note pad right before my 24 throw hand near the end of day 7. Once I made that change I had seven 20+ throw hands out of 10 hands.

My total win at craps for the week was $750 plus the $120 at poker. This was offset by a loss of $150 at blackjack and $50 at slot machines. So my net was $670 which just about offset the cost of the cruise for me. As usual my wifes net is her secret. I was with her when she won $200 at a video poker machine and $150 at a fun 21 game (Spanish 21). My gut feeling is that she lost hundreds at the poker pro game. My win more than off set her loss so we ended up ahead for the cruise.

My final thoughts are that what I have to do is try to learn to consistently make my throws as soft as possible. It seems to me that I can't dial it down as readily as I would like to. On a neutral bounce table without super ball rubber this isn't a concern, my throw can tolerate more variability. I really had it together for those last 10 hands listed above. One final thing is that this cruise is my father in laws last one. He is through.

Dicenator

[sailor_jimc]

Hey Dice... just wanted to let you know that the Carnival Freedom has this exact same craps table. Blue Microfiber, hard black rubber walls (and a hard black "ring" around the top of the walls at the chip rails.)

[KirkNC]

Thanks for the review!